The unbeatable secrets of Man Utd

Carrick's pass was in fact a deep cross from left to right, aiming at Giggs. Once Giggs got around Bosingwa near the touchline, Giggs could have 2 choice: either cross it in front of goal, hoping someone would tap-in or poach it, or cut it back to in-coming and on-rushing teammates, in this case Rooney. He succeeded, and the goal was simple and easy.

Man Utd's tactics are always like this - Start with cross balls from left to right or right to left, then find a way or two to cross or cut back inside the penalty box (sometimes just outside the edge of the box). And their teammates are always ready - either waiting to poach, or find a space to receive the cut back balls.

Goals scored like this are pretty easy goals. You don't need high talent to do it. Just need a lot of practice. Practice makes perfect. They only need hardworking players to keep trying and trying to succeed.

Thus if you look at Man Utd team, they have hardworking players like Carrick, Fletcher, Park, Valencia. They are good players but not highly talented ones. Following and playing these cross ball tactics over and over again makes them highly useful to Man Utd. They won't get tired doing this.

Plus they have solid defense in Vidic, Rio, Evra, VDS, together with these hardworking players, simply make their defensive job easier.

Up front the only players that can be called talented are Rooney and Berbatov (or perhaps Nani as well I don't know). But Rooney is more useful in this cross ball tactics than Berbatov as he is faster and more energetic.

Hernandez is good, but not a highly talented type of player, just normal. But he is the fastest striker in PL thus make him highly useful to these cross ball tactics - He is fast to receive cross balls or cut back balls. Thus scoring 17 goals now is not a surprise at all. But it doesn't mean he is highly talented though. He is good. But the highly effective cross ball tactics just make him look like he is the best.

In fact these cross ball tactics make everyone of their attackers look like the best - Rooney, Nani, Berbatov, Hernandez. But if you look at some stats, more than 60% of their goals come directly from cross balls. If include some "indirect" cross balls (attack started with crosses, ended with passes, deflection, gifted own goals, cut back balls etc.), the stats could be even more appalling.

But without these tactics, their players are not really as good as people think. And their team would not have scored so many goals as they currently have now.

And because they only need hardworking but not highly talented players who can play these tactics or system well, they only need to spend less on new, cheap players. Glazers must be very happy they have Fergie.

Fergie is a genius.

So to stop or beat Man Utd, you only need to beat one man - Fergie.

To beat Fergie, you need to break his tactics - the highly effective cross ball tactics.

Fast cross ball tactics + hardworking normal talent players + solid defense, all these are enough for them to succeed. It is their secret formula or some kind.